


Up The Road, Around The Bend

by mercuryhatter



Series: up the road, around the bend [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (suicidal thoughts warned for more specifically in chapter notes), (the comfort is coming eventually), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Episode: s05e04 The End, God is a dick, Grief/Mourning, Injury Recovery, M/M, Multiple Universes Colliding, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rebuilding, Reconciliation, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 15, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23688484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: In season 15, God is shutting down his alternate worlds. In a distant version of season 5, the world has already come to an end. But that one ended exactly as God wanted it to, and in a flash of sentimentality he seals that world off and lets its inhabitants keep going, if they can manage it.A slow post-apocalypse ramble.
Relationships: Castiel & God (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: up the road, around the bend [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705891
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

_ As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden _ _   
_ _ The wounded flowers were danglin’ from the vine _ _   
_ _ I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain _ _   
_ _ Someone hit me from behind _

__ _ Bob Dylan, Ain’t Talkin’   
_

* * *

__

_ one _

__ Cas was bleeding out from a catastrophic gut wound, stinking and white-hot painful on the dirty linoleum of what had once been a hospital. It was pretty much how he had expected to end his day. His main regret was the instinctive headshot he’d gotten off before he hit the floor. It would have been nice to die a little faster. A torn-out throat might have been more his speed, he thought, but it had been a long time since anyone asked his opinion on that sort of thing. He gathered enough breath to yell, just to see if a stray Croat might pop out from the woodwork to help him out, but it seemed he was the only dying thing left here. Go figure. At least the force of his scream blacked him out for a few moments, but he was back again far too quickly, remnants of an angelic constitution giving him one last good fuck-you. 

“If you  _ had _ been on a tortilla,” he ground out, directing a semi-delirious voice vaguely towards the ceiling, “it wouldn’t have been fit to make a burrito with.” It was as satisfying as anything he could do at this point, which was to say, not very. Cas let his head fall back against the tile and waited for his body to give out. 

“I take offense to that,” he heard instead, a bizarrely familiar voice. Cas groaned and rolled his eyes towards the sound. 

“What the hell are you doing here,” he said to Chuck, barely processing the casual way he held himself in the carnage or the spotless white suit he wore. “Can I not even order my own deathbed hallucinations? No offense, but you’re pretty far down on my list.” 

Chuck smiled, the expression turning his face oddly callous. 

“Oh, Castiel. Cas,” he chuckled. He went to one knee and stroked Cas’s bloody hair, then frowned at the mess it left on his hand, a mess that vanished at a blink. “Gosh, Cas, I know I’ve played favorites, but I do want you to know that all this time you’ve been a close second.” 

“What.” Chuck’s hand passed over Cas’s shredded abdomen and Cas screamed as it knitted itself back together, left breathless by the sudden change in sensation. His sense of reality sharpened and he started to wonder in earnest what exactly the hell was going on, focusing harder on Chuck’s face. He looked like Chuck, had none of the faint aura of demon or Croat that Cas could still sometimes sense if he tried. But everything about the way he moved and spoke was decidedly  _ not _ the Chuck he knew. 

“I know this must be confusing for you,” Chuck continued, his voice saccharine and ringing with false balm. “My rebellious little son. Truly the baby of the celestial family and you’ve still done so much with yourself! Listen, Castiel. This has been fun-- all of it has, really. But all things must end, and I’m shutting all these little games down. Still, though, I’m not a father completely without mercy. And this world that you’re in, it’s one of the ones I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for. Some of the others…” Chuck’s face twisted into an ugly scowl. “Well. It’s not important anymore. But this one? Oh, man, Cas, this one ended just perfectly. Just what I wanted! Just goes to show, sometimes you gotta quit while you’re ahead.” 

Cas’s head was still spinning, exhaustion and blood loss and the dizzy, disorienting way that the world seemed to hold uncannily still around the thing that was shaped like Chuck. 

God. Chuck was God. Had always been God? That didn’t seem possible, but neither did what was happening right now. 

There weren’t enough swear words in all of Cas’s half-remembered languages for this one. 

“Sorry, I’m monologuing, aren’t I?” God gave a little self-deprecating laugh, the body language momentarily all Chuck’s. “The point is, I came to give you a gift before I go, son. Here.” God picked up Cas’s hands from where they still clutched at his abdomen, clean of gore the moment God touched them. There was a searing light and Cas screamed again, helpless to hold it back even though his throat felt like it would disintegrate in protest. 

“Sorry,” God chuckled. “Stings a little, I know. Anyway, you take that to Dean and he’ll be just fine. And this world…” God stood up, spreading his arms wide. “Well, I don’t need it anymore. Won’t hurt anything if I just let you two scrabble around in whatever’s left. Enjoy!” 

He was gone before Cas could get up the wherewithal to curse him as he left. 

Slowly, Cas gathered himself, taking stock of what his absolute asswipe of a father had left him. The gut wound was gone but his cuts and bruises remained, something still very wrong with his left kneecap and his right shoulder felt strained, though thankfully not out of joint. There was a slice on his back, large enough to annoy but apparently nonlethal, still bleeding sluggishly through his shirt. He was thirsty enough to kill.

“Dick,” Cas muttered, looking down to see what God had done with his hands. It looked like they had been burned, skin pink and peeling around branded sigils, one in each palm with its mirror on the back of each hand. They were still hot, glowing faintly from beneath the skin, and growing hotter. 

_ You take that to Dean and he’ll be just fine. _

Cas groaned and heaved himself up to standing, shoulder heavy against the nearest wall for support. He limped through the halls like a pinball moving through its machine in slow motion, bouncing from support to support. More than once he grabbed for something rotten that sent him tumbling to the ground, groaning in the dust, but he pressed on, moving towards the faint twinge in the universe that was Dean’s presence. It wasn’t strong enough anymore to track with any real precision, but it was a magnetic north that his body had never lost. 

Eventually he caught a glimpse of bright, incongruous garden-green through a window, something brown and bloody crumpled at its center. Cas’s heart twisted reflexively at the sight. He was fairly sure the power in his hands wasn’t a trick-- it certainly  _ felt _ like Grace-- but it had been a long time since he’d felt something like that. Not to mention that he didn’t trust the God-Chuck he’d seen farther than he could throw a tennis ball in his current state. He could only hope that if it was all a trick, or just the last active neurons in his brain firing at random, that Dean’s gun would have a bullet left. 

The stairs were a new kind of hell, even scooting down on his ass, but Cas was nearly past registering new pains. The trapped Grace in his palms was all he could think of, how the burn of it kept growing, the itch to get it out of him getting more powerful. If it burned out before he reached Dean--

No. No point in contemplating that. Just keep going, step by exhausted step. 

Dean’s body was still faintly warm, not yet beginning to stiffen in the evening sun. Cas tore through his undershirt almost blindly, shoved flannel down his shoulders, moving on ancient instinct. One burning palm to Dean’s heart, the other to the faded scar on his shoulder. As familiar as--  _ more _ familiar than breathing. 

The Grace burst past its confines and poured out of him, Cas focusing only on maintaining contact with Dean until it was gone. Then he was facedown in Dean’s chest, clinging to consciousness just long enough to hear Dean’s heart stutter back to life and his lungs fill; not a moment longer. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mild suicidal thinking from Cas at the end. you can skip the last paragraph to avoid it. he'll get better, I promise.

_ Ain't talkin', just a'walkin'  
_ _ Through this weary world of woe  
_ _ Heart burnin', still yearnin'  
_ __ No one on earth would ever know

__ _ Bob Dylan, Ain’t Talkin’  _

_ two  _

Cas came to, still face down but now smelling alcohol instead of Dean and feeling the distantly painful push-pull of a needle and floss closing up the cut in his back. He tried to speak and coughed instead, causing the needle to pause as his back shook. A hand rubbed between his shoulders and he focused on breathing as the needle started up again. He didn’t feel dehydrated anymore, noting the presence of a fluids bag hanging off a chair near his head, presumably leading to another needle in him somewhere. Still, without having taken fluids orally his throat was all ground glass and fire, harsh enough to make him recall his earlier desire to have it torn out. 

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re done. Let’s turn you over, come on.” Cas’s lips itched to say Dean’s name in response to his voice, blessedly familiar and alive and real, but he held back. Instead, the moment Dean had gotten him turned around, Cas threw his arms around his neck and held on fiercely. Dean clasped him back, too briefly, extricating himself to reach for a thermos on the table nearby. 

“Okay, okay, Cas, I know. Here, this will help.” Dean pressed an ice cube to Cas’s lips. Cas held it on his tongue gratefully, taking the thermos of ice when it was given to him and sucking on several more as Dean cleaned up. Bloody rags and discarded needles disposed of, he sat down heavily in the chair, careful not to disturb the fluids bag. Cas could see the IV now in the back of his left hand as he processed their surroundings. They weren’t back at camp, but he could remember having used this place as a travel base before. It used to be a grocery store, still had intermittently working freezers if you could get a generator going. Cas was laid out on a table in what had once been a break room and now served as a sort of traveler’s rest, stocked with a collection of canned goods, sleeping bags, and other supplies. There was another, smaller table nearby, makeshift first aid kid open on it next to a bottle of vodka (half empty), a bottle of bourbon (mostly full), and a pile of clean torn up t-shirts and dish towels. 

Dean took a long swallow of the bourbon and passed it to Cas, who took one about five times longer, relaxing by inches into the comforting warmth. 

“So what happened?” Dean asked. He sounded as exhausted as Cas felt, though appeared to be completely injury-free thanks to the infusion of Grace. He had taken one of Cas’s hands in his when he sat down and was still holding it. Cas kept it very still, wondering if Dean had simply forgotten it was there. 

He told the story haltingly as he alternated between ice cubes and bourbon. When he held out his free hand to describe the branded Grace, he found that while the burns were still there, they had been blurred beyond recognition by the transfer, just smears of glassy skin now, numb and dead. 

“What happened to past-Dean?” Cas asked as he wrapped up. His recounting of the conversation with God was bringing up some serious concerns about the implications of what God had said. “God said he was shutting things down, multiple worlds. He made it sound like he was setting this one aside, somehow, but I’ll be honest, Dean, this level of multiverse physics is beyond me.”

“You’re telling me,” Dean said. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened to him. I assume Zach zapped him back at some point, he was gone by the time I woke up. Don’t ask me what any of this does to the streams or whatever.” 

“Yeah,” Cas agreed pensively. “Well. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he shut down the Croats on his way out. Maybe it’s all sunshine and roses out there now.” Dean barked a pessimistic laugh, which about summed up how Cas felt about the scenario he’d drawn. He sighed and moved to sit cross-legged, but stopped and hissed as the movement jostled his injured knee. 

“It was dislocated,” Dean said, nodding to the knee, which was now wrapped in rags to keep it straight and immobile. “Your shoulder was kinda messed up too, but not dislocated, I think it’ll be fine. I popped the kneecap back in but you know the drill, gotta be careful with it for a few weeks.” Cas nodded, the ghost of a sardonic grin on his lips. Each time his human body failed him like this it struck less like a betrayal and more like a tired reality, but that didn’t make it any less inconvenient. 

“Cas, look.” Dean’s hand tightened on Cas’s and he startled, looking down at their joined hands and back up at Dean. Dean seemed to be gearing up for something, and he didn’t seem to want to break away from Cas to say it. “Neither of us expected to live through this. I didn’t plan for this and I sure as hell know you didn’t. But-- man, after Sam--” He broke off, catching himself on a jagged breath. 

Cas was beginning to soften into comfortable, detached drunkenness, and he wondered if Dean was working up to saying goodbye. It was kind of him, Cas thought, to stick around to do it. 

“Bottom line is,” Dean continued, gathering himself, “you’re all I’ve got left, Cas. Have been for a while now, if we’re being honest.  _ We’re _ all we’ve got left. And I-- I left things in a shitty place with Sammy, and I never got to fix it. I almost let that happen to us too. If you want to go off on your own or whatever I know I can’t stop you, but if I get a vote-- I just want us to be okay, if we can. I know we can’t fix everything overnight-- hell, we barely got a chance to do things right the first time. So… that’s what I want to do know, I guess, if you’re okay with it. Cas?” Cas blinked, realizing at the sound of his name that he hadn’t done so since Dean started speaking. The sincerity of the speech threw him; he felt slightly out of body with the force of it.

“Yes, Dean,” he said automatically at Dean’s prompting, but worked his hand out of Dean’s grip. Dean let him go. Cas couldn’t bring himself to look at Dean’s expression, instead twisting his own hands together and feeling the numbness of his burned palms sliding past each other. 

Dean was right, he had not planned for this. Hadn’t planned to live, hadn’t planned to ever hear Dean talk to him like this, hadn't planned for a single night after their last. Hadn’t ever planned to feel like this, a battle his soldier’s mind wasn’t made to process and his still-new human mind rebelled from comprehending. The enormity of human life was spreading out in front of him, years and years without God or Devil or missions or any end at all but an uncertain death somewhere in the distance. It was too much, more than he had ever contemplated. 

“I don’t know what that looks like,” he said finally, hating the smallness of his own voice. He didn’t want to speak at all, but even through his turmoil he was loath to leave Dean stewing in his own tense silence. “I want to tell you whatever you want to hear but I… I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know how we exist without a fight, I don’t know how  _ I _ …” Cas drained the rest of the bourbon and laid down, rolling over stiffly to face away from Dean, arms drawn into his chest. “I can’t do this right now. I need to sleep.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said brittly. His voice was rough and choked, and after a moment he left Cas alone. 

Cas pretended not to hear the sounds of Dean’s grief outside the break room door and forced himself into an uneasy twilight sleep. He wished for something stronger than bourbon to put him out more fully, wished his injuries were dire enough to pull him under, wished he’d been a little slower with the shot that had kept him alive long enough for God to arrive at the hospital. Like every damn thing his father had ever done for him, this gift was cruel. It was too big, and it hurt and Cas couldn’t see a single way out of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> I plan to carry this on for as long as the whimsy takes me, and I suppose there's a distant chance that season 15 might become interesting enough for me to cross back over with it, but I'm mostly using the events of s15 as an excuse for this to exist. It's mostly just going to be Cas and Dean and various survivors figuring shit out and rebuilding. 
> 
> The major character death tag is currently only for the fact that I intend to leave Sam dead for the time being. That tag and all tags will be updated as I go. 
> 
> I've also linked this story to a oneshot of mine to establish Dean and Cas's relationship. I originally wrote that one intending it to be canon compliant and it still stands on its own, but I plan to write this one as if it happened here too. It doesn't need to be read to understand this one.


End file.
